A person who with any stretch of the imagination cannot be called an expert on road safety.

So why did they select me to be one of the speakers?

Because it makes a lot of sense to bring in someone to give a different perspective, because when all are coming from the same industry, have similar background and experiences then the ideas presented tend to be the same.

It is often the job of a professional speaker.

It’s like how kings historically used to have a Jester who could speak the uncomfortable truth in front of the king without the risk of being killed. Or how Ceasar had a slave whisper “you are mortal” in his ear so he would not start to think he was a god with all the praise he would be getting from “yes sayers” around him.

So does that mean that speakers are just modern day jesters or slaves?

Yes, in a way it does. And I am fine with it. It is actually a very honourable job to be speaking the truth (or perhaps I should be saying: “speaking an alternative truth”.)

Because it is not that the industry experts are wrong.

It is just that it is always dangerous when one “truth” become “the truth” in an industry.

And that’s why it makes sense to bring in someone who know nothing about an industry to speak at an industry conference.

Lesson: Take pride in being the one with a different expertise. It’s one of our strongest selling points as speakers.

ps.

Road safety is one of the world’s most interesting industries in the world. Road accidents is one of the top 10 killers of humans globally. United Nations have declared that the world is going to tackle this fact in a big way the next 15 years and the (very ambitious) goal is to reduce the number of traffic deaths by 50% (!) in 15 years. Now that is going to happen while we will, in the same 15 years, add another 1 billion (!) new cars on our roads (which means doubling the number of cars on the road.)

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That was the question that I had been asked to answer as Bentley Motors invited me to be their speaker at a VIP dinner for a few select guests of theirs in Singapore.

I started by saying that I would take a “creative approach” to try to reply to the question. (By that I did not mean that I would try to speak “creatively” about the subject, but that I would use my background as an author of creativity books to look at the word of “extraordinary” from the viewpoint of creativity.)

So what does the word “extraordinary” mean?

The dictionary says it means “very unusual or remarkable.”

So what does “remarkable” mean? It means: “worthy of attention; striking.”

So that means that to be extraordinary we need to be unusual and worthy of attention.

And that, sounds to me, very much like being creative.

For to be creative it is not enough to be “different” – we also need to create something that makes the world, in some way, better.

But here comes a paradox:

Our results should be worthy of attention – but when we create our ideas we cannot, and should not, seek the attention of others.
We should only try to create the very best idea that we can.

In the case of Vincent van Gogh, it took centuries for the world to pay attention to his creativity.

To be extraordinary we cannot create based on what others think.

Be Unapologetically great

That means doing what we feels need doing without asking for permission or apologising for what we think it right.

Think about it, almost all truly great creative ideas has come from a place of someone being unapologetic about what the creator believed in.

But being unapologetically great it not the same as being full of yourself.
Many amazingly successful people have been full of them self, cooky and loud – but the most extraordinary people of the world are the humbled successes. The Nelson Mandelas, the David Beckhams, the Dali Lama’s of the world.

Not the Donald Trumps of the world…

Yes, some great people are full of themselves.
But I am talking about the truly great who tend to be unapologetic about their ideas – not about themselves.

Be radically true to who you truly are.

To be true to our ideas we need to be true to ourselves.

Mahatma Gandhi was passionate about an independent India through a non-violent approach and saw himself as fighting for the rights of the millions of poor Indians. When he, in 1931, traveled to the UK to negotiate with the British government he travelled in the lowest class in the ship and arrived at 10 Downing Street wearing his loin-cloth not the western suits that were expected. A great example of not caring about what others expect someone to do.

The rest of us are not Gandhi, but we should equally try to stay radically true to who we are and the ideas we believe in.

Do not try to be perfect. Be your best.

To be perfect means “having all the required or desirable elements”. That sounds great, but it implies that we somehow have to achieve what others have agreed on as “required” or “desirable”.

But why settle to achieve the highest standards set up by others? Let’s instead aim for the highest standard set by yourself.

By doing your own things as well as you could possibly do it you will achieve something better then perfect:

You will be extraordinary.

This is an adaptation (and shortened) text from the speech I did at the Bentley event. It was a short 15-minute speech for a small group of VIP-guests as part of an exclusive dinner.

I post this text today as a reminder of what we as speakers should aim for. Doing what you believe in is always important, but extra important for a speaker – since we are paid to give our point of view.

At 2 pm I was scheduled to stand on stage to give a keynote speech in Paris.

75 minutes earlier I was still speaking for a group in Skövde, Sweden …

But I made it.

How was that possible?

By giving my first speech in this small little crappy server room next to the venue I was speaking at in Paris.

You see, I did my first speech via Skype.

I am not a big fan of “video speeches” and I do not actively promote giving video speeches as something I do, and yet I have done two video speeches just in the last month.

First one for a conference in Rumania (from my bedroom in Sweden)

And now this second one to a group in Sweden from a server room in Paris).

I said yet to both those requests because the client had wanted me to come and speak at their conference but for scheduling purposes it was just not possible.

(And yes, I got paid my “local speaker fee” for both those speeches.)

So why do I not like doing video speeches?

Three reasons:

1) I really like to travel and meet new people and see new places. Traveling is not a down side of my job – I see it as a perk.

2) There is always the risk of the technology not working.

(For one of the speeches I did this month we literally got the skype and Internet-connection to work 2 minutes (!) before i was scheduled to talk (And then we started testing it one hour before, had tested it days earlier and I had a IT-expert to help me…)

3) My style of speaking is interactive.

It is possible to interact also via a video speech, but it is more difficult.

My best advice for giving skype-speeches is to develop your imagination so that you actually feel that you are in the room speaking.

The key words for a good keynote are “connection”, “presence”, and “authenticity” – all of that is hard to do at a distance, via a screen.

Not impossible but difficult.

By forcing yourself to feel that you are actually transmitting yourself into the computer and into the room where the audience is sitting you will make it easier for the audience to connect with you and your message.

If you do it well the audience will get almost the same feeling as if you where there.

But – watching a concert on TV or on a computer will NEVER be the same as watching the concert live.

It is the same with a speech.

But if you do it right you can get close.

Below are two quotes from the speeches I did on the same day:

Quote 1 from the “real” speech in Paris where the man and I were in the same room:

“I’d like to thank you very much for your wonderful, inspiring, & dynamic presentation you’ve made to us during CANON EXPO at Paris. I really admire your abilities & how you motivate people.”
– Regards Yasser

Quote 2 from the speech I did via Skype and where the audience and I were in different countries:“I would like to thank you for a very interesting presentation today. It was both inspiring and thought provoking – an eye opener. I will bring this speech with me as a reference for the future.”
– Tomas Planstedt

As you can see, very similar kind of feedback.

Lesson: If you do a “long distance virtual speech” do everything you can to try to “transmit” yourself to where the audience is sitting so that they can feel how you are trying to connect with them.

When giving a skype-speech the “connection” almost becomes more important than “the message’.

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Bad Day At Work – Or Why I Am Not A Pilot

Whoever tells you being a global speaker just means a lot of time on airplanes is missing the point.

ABOUT THIS SITE

ProfessionalSpeaking.com is run by Fredrik Haren, a Keynote Speaker whose specialty is to speak at Global and International Conferences around the world.

Through this site, he wants to inspire others to learn more about the job of being a professional speaker by sharing his thoughts on what it means to work as a global, professional speaker.

Fredrik has been speaking professionally for more than 20 years. He has been invited to speak in over 60 countries on 5 continents, and just in the last 12 months, he spoke in 32 different countries. He is a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), as well as one of less than 40 CSP Global in the world. He was awarded "Speaker of the Year" in Sweden and selected as one of the "Top 10 Swedish Speakers Ever". He now lives in Singapore.

As an author for over 20 years, Fredrik has written 9 books which have been translated to more than 15 languages and sold in over 60 countries. His book, The Idea Book, was included in "The 100 Best Business Books of All Time.”

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